Wuthering Heights
by swan-scones
Summary: "The rain, for a change, was feathery soft and sizzled against the sweat on his face wonderfully, slithered into his mouth in between his teeth, nourished him - and Cathy was here, Cathy with her breathy chirpy voice and her sparrowy giggles and greyish warm hands." A 21st Century modernisation of Wuthering Heights.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Is this the greatest challenge I've ever set myself? Most probably. It is so far. First and foremost, I hope to God I manage to do the wonderful Emily Brontë a little justice. This fic was an idea brought about by my sister and boyfriend. I've been trying to interest them both in Wuthering Heights as I'll be studying it for A-level this year, but my sister claimed the book was a little inaccessible. Though she enjoyed the story, reading the book was a tiresome effort so she stuck to films and TV. And so, this is my adaption of WH, attempting to follow the book as closely as possible, placing it into a modern context to make it more appealing to a younger and non-literature-geek audience. Yes, it's got my own little flare on it and it isn't written from Nelly's perspective (frankly I can't find reason for servants in modern times) but in the third person, and yes I've added my own little scenes. After all, I want to have fun with it, and I hope you all do too!**

**I'll be uploading the first two chapters so satisfy any insatiable appetite for some Heathcliff action (he'll be in the next one with Cathy). So here's the Lockwood log. Heathcliff intro will be next. I hope you all enjoy it and please let me know what you think!**

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_December, 2012_

And so John Lockwood arrived at Wuthering Heights. He had imagined a room of such an ostentatious house, a renovated farmhouse, a lovely moss-eaten grey stone one, might've been open expecting a couple to take it. Honeymooning or make-or-break-break kind of thing. He saw it a lot here. It was the way animals were always fornicating in the grass – whisper and thrust, rabbit hole, burrowing – the perfect aphrodisiac. He got a sense from his host, Heathcliff, that wasn't quite the case. When Lockwood greeted him he was regarded with these dark, shiny bird-black, intent, flitting eyes. His hand clutched the doorknob, and his fingers were slimy and pink and bitten to the quick. If you didn't notice those little details you'd have probably made him out to be an office kind of guy, seeing as he was clearly living in a house far too big to fill up with any happiness or love he might have – maybe there was a little ghost of it, it's voice heaving out like the cold breath of the sea, stirring the dust in the lamplight – but otherwise it was empty, like all office guys lives. Inside there was silence. Every beam and board seemed to throb rottenly, with a toothache, a sadness.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I'm John Lockwood, I called last week, I booked a room for my business trip."

"Business trip?" Lockwood watched as Heathcliff's mouth, thick and bowed sharply so that he might've been his Nana's cherub as a child, tug up quickly in one corner. He supposed Heathcliff was pleased. He didn't seem the sort of guy to express it. He exhaled, and his breath was hot and sour as sick. "Alone?"

"Yeah, alone, mate," Lockwood answered. Strictly speaking, it was more of a business venture – internet publishing was a far more complex game than he had expected, especially concerning the publishing industries terrible pack of leaches and liars, a subsequent lack of money and therefore a subsequent lack of sex life. Strictly speaking it wasn't a 'business' venture at all; just a venture. "Am I alright to dump my bags?"

"Oh, why not?" Heathcliff nudged the door open for him with his foot. He was proper crisp clean dressed, downy white shirt, soft black leather belt on the dark trousers, and Lockwood just knew he'd be the type to wear shoes in the house, the type where is comfortability comes unnaturally, the type that lives in a constant state of agitation, like a bird banging its head against a cage roof. "There are plenty of unwanted things just knockin' about here. Why not?"

When he said it he gestured to a woman (surprisingly, it had been so quiet he thought he lived alone) slouched over a mauve leather sofa, her ankles crossed on its arm. She was girlishly pretty, with light, gingery freckles spattered around her nose, which was slightly perked off her face, a soft round chin and eyes the colour of soapy water, milky. She looked up, understood the significance (there was no mistaking it by the brutally compelling tension in the Heathcliff, the muscles surrounding his shoulder blades visibly gathered and slackened at least three times) and dipped her head down against her shoulder. Her focus was not focused. And her smile to Lockwood clearly wasn't a real one, but it didn't matter.

"Mrs Heathcliff," said Lockwood's host, quickly waving towards the open doorway where she could be seen with such flamboyancy of gesture it was obvious that acknowledging her existence caused him some sort of terrible difficulty. In all honesty Lockwood could see his appeal, despite him being a bit of a creepy bastard. She probably relished the feel of the breath of a filthy beast in the shell of her ear when she got all hot and bothered. He responded with equal nonchalance to her smile and went to place his bags on the floor, but Heathcliff grabbed his arm.

"No, you booked at the Grange, didn't you?"

"I –"

"The Heights is just for check in. You won't be staying here."

"But I -"

"Thrushcross Grange is only two miles away," he said, gritting his molars.

He seemed to have ignored the snow sliding beneath Lockwood's collar, covering him in its glossy wet trails and seeping into his clothes.

"Might I pay for a room here tonight, if I can? The snow's a buggar for driving in; I thought I was going to slip to my death down some of those roads. No grip."

Heathcliff watched him with those shiny bird eyes and then nodded, "But it will cost you fifty more."

"That's fine."

It wasn't fine, of course, but he'd rather play it safe. Playing it safe was being here in the first place.

"Then Haden, see that the horses are fed for the night!" Heathcliff called. He should have known these people would have owned horses, living in a renovated farmhouse with every possible gadget and gizmo and hardly a streak of feeling in their eyes and actions.

"Horses?" he asked.

"My old man earned his money breeding and trading them," Heathcliff said indifferently. "It is my inheritance."

Then he looked pointedly at the young man emerging from the kitchen. His hair was full, bouncy brown curls and he had a considerable amount of stubble for a young guy – a thick, ginger-brown beard was growing on his jaw. Unlike the rest of the family he was dressed in pretty shoddy clothing – his jeans were faded that musty, mud-washed brown colour at the hems and steadily fraying, and his t-shirt was quite possibly a hand-me-down from a fat bloke, maybe his Dad or an uncle. He went to walk straight past Lockwood, but Heathcliff clucked his tongue and immediately he froze. For this reason it wasn't clear whether he was a member of the staff (they clearly had a cleaner, he could see through the open kitchen door; and he couldn't help but feel ruthless jealousy of the rich bastards), or a member of the family.

"Are you not going to greet our guest?"

Haden obeyed him and offered a hand, which Lockwood accepted and shook strongly.

"Haden Earnshaw," he explained himself. The house had a plaque above the door reading something about Earnshaw, he'd noticed. It was confusing.

"Nice to meet you," he responded.

"Haden is Mrs Heathcliff's cousin," Heathcliff elaborated upon his expression with a subtle smirk; he'd achieved his aim in confusing further.

"You live with your wife and her cousin – what a good, ah, family ethic. I've never known it myself."

"My _wife_?" Extraordinarily Heathcliff seemed to find it hilarious, and threw his head back and hissed with laughter, "Mrs Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law."

Haden left through the side entrance hurriedly, and Lockwood decided to leave the matter completely –this place was stranger than he'd imagined. Perhaps one of those horses was Haden's niece?

"The fifty will be fine," he back-tracked, clearing his throat. Heathcliff nodded.

"Yes. Then I will leave you to it."

He placed his bags down and a member of staff, he assumed, took them from him and led him to a room.

The house was clearly an old one, they had kept a lot of original features; there was cherrywood panelling all across the hall walls, floral grey and pale pink velvet wallpaper in the lounge, an old, black marble fireplace in the reception room. Other than that it was light wooden flooring, cream and grey carpeting. He could hear the faint hum of a computer monitor from one room with a wall full of books and 'Mrs' Heathcliff's face changed red, black, blue, red below the kaleidoscope of a plasma screen TV. He got the feeling the harshness of it all numbed her senses to her father-in-law, who was one of the most uptight idiots Lockwood had ever met.

He was shown to a smaller room in the left wing of the house. It was white, with the same long, white-framed windows and red cottony curtains. The bed was a double with a mahogany headboard and white sheets with red embroidery. He guessed it had been a little girl's room at some point, which worried him, should the sheets smell of girl sweat and turn his stomach. He sat upon the bed and inhaled thickly, relishing the clean linen and its smell. Then he lay down, and as he lay he realised the headboard was not embellished originally. Carved into the wood by what he assumed must have been some small, sharp object (maybe a sewing needle or a pair of tweezers) were words. It was baby scrawl, baby talk. _Catherine Earnshaw_. _Catherine Heathcliff. Catherine Heathcliff. Cathy Heathcliff. Catherine Linton. _And over and over it went, a cycle of Catherines. How had a little girl got around to scratching such expensive wood so deeply? She must've been strong.

His eyes were growing so heavy he might have had marbles in the sockets, and so he set to looking into the mahogany shelves for something to entertain himself – kids always kept their old Gameboy somewhere in a bookcase or draw, maybe there was some sort of model aeroplane magazine or a music box to watch and wind. He sought something out. She'd nothing interesting but a few old note books. He gave them a go, hoping to find some sort of teenage dirty doodles, maybe some whiny poetry or details on a broken heart, something entertaining, like an agony aunt page – he often experienced a perverse pleasure at another's misfortune, most probably because he dwelled on his own far too often.

It was a diary, for the most part – the perfect reflection of her mind, chaotic, evocative. It was a diary with a few sums, details about birds, drawings of dogs and butterflies and a brown-haired girl with the wings of an angel, flying over the farmhouse. The nesting and breeding habits of lapwings was large part – the girl had drawn a picture of four olive, black freckled eggs and messy sketches of the birds' eyes and beaks, connected by inky scribbles. He guessed living out in such a wide open space had encouraged such an interest in nature, unusual in someone of her age. She must've been a mucky pup. In the rest of the pages were pressed dandelions and daisies which fell out into his fingers like scabs. After this some diary entries began, but the dates were muddled and spaced oddly. She discussed her first time remedying a nettle sting contracted by 'H', and then she wrote about a brother, Howard, and her sister-in-law, and her father.

He checked the labelling of the title of the last entry, which was 1986; so around twenty-five years ago. He could tell it was old by the faded ink and some sort of bright coloured stain on the corner of the paper of the yellow front cover, paling with age – it was most probably from chewy sweeties, the saliva slicked globules bleeding rainbows onto children's fingers. He remembered it well and smiled. He felt as if he had uncovered some sort of treasured beaten relic, as though the house sighed emptily with the memory. 'H' had been cast out to sleep in the house's wine cellar by Howard, she explained to herself, and she had cried herself to sleep, lying against the very pale wooden floorboards beneath his feet to 'be closer to the ground, and to him'. Lockwood thought 'H' might've been an imaginary friend. It seemed that way. For now this Cathy would have to be his.

He slapped his head on the pillow to read in a more comfortable position, as craning his neck was doing it no favours, his muscles and skin already chilled and slimy a steak fillet fresh from the fridge. Once again, the shock of warmth from the sheets held him rapt in dreamy bliss, and before long he was asleep, Catherine Earnshaw's books laid open across his chest, pressed flower petals scattered around him like chips of broken glass.

The dream he had was unpleasant. He was roused from sleep (sleep within his sleep, that is) by the insistent tapping of a branch of a fir tree against the window pane. He grunted awake, his annoyance making him lose any inhibition or fear of the cold, and flicked open the little golden latch. The brilliant wind filled his lungs in a single tiny breath, squealed into his face like a broken, hungry animal, thrashed with rain; spat it into him, cold glassy phlegm. He stuck his hand out into the dark and felt for the tree branch to coldly snap it, cut its vocal cord, but instead he clutched a humanoid form. A miniature _hand_, the bones beneath it frail as a bird's wing, the skin grey and dry as grave-flowers. A breath hitched up in his throat and remained there, and he sat for a moment, neither dead nor alive as he felt the labyrinth of little blue veins slowly and steadily beat the body's respiration. It clung so tight the nails formed red grooves above his knuckles.

He screeched, "Leggo!"

"Let me in – let me in!"

He tried, desperately, to fling his arm inside, but it did no use. It was a child's voice, and a crushingly miserable female one at that. She held him quick and fast. He attempted to look into her eyes through the rain and glass, and there he saw the sweet, pussy-cat face of a small girl, with the most peculiar blue eyes, glistening wetly out of the dark.

He struggled further but it she did not give up, "Who are you?" He howled, terrified by now. "Oh God I'm cracked, I must be fuckin' _cracked_!"

"I'm Catherine Linton," she shuddered. "I'm home now; let me in, I got lost on the moors!"

He shook and shook but her grip was too tight, and, crazed and cruel in his fear, he held onto the girls hand and smashed and thwacked it up against the glass, to sever it. It shattered with a high-pitched, deliciously bright sound, and steadily the jagged shapes of it were drooled on by the thick, syrupy cranberry blood of the girl. Now it flickered onto his face, drenched the bedclothes. Still she moaned, "Let me in! Let me in!"

"Let go of me so I can let you in, then!" he protested, cleverness hitting him quick as a brick. Her fingers relinquished their grip and he snatched his hand from her, bolting the window shut once again and stacking her exercise books on the window sill to close the spiky hole in the glass. He stuck his index fingers in his ears, tickled the damp wax there, and noisily hushed himself, anxious for consolation. For fifteen minutes it seemed to have ended, and he rubbed his fingers on the knees of his jeans to clean them, leaving sticky yellowy markings. She was still crying, yowling like a banshee, a baby.

"Go away!" he screeched, "I won't ever let you in – I _won't_ let you in!"

She bawled, "I have been, I am trapped here, I have been for twenty years!" And then his barricade of books jutted forward, pushed hard by her tiny hands like dead flowers, and he went to bolt up, and leave, run a mile, but he could neither tense nor relax a single muscle, and so he screamed.

He heard the sound of footsteps down the hall and a light sneered beneath the door. Someone was behind the wood, muttering harshly. He looked about himself. There was no blood, no rain, and only the fragments of the flower petals about him, no broken glass. Silence pierced his ears, and he opened his mouth as wide as possible, as if sat ready for a dentist's spit-sucker, to call them, but he couldn't conjure the noise. Then he heard more muttering.

Finally he heard the low voice of Heathcliff, weirdishly gentle, quiet, speak into the room.

"Hello? Who's there?"

It was the kindliest whisper he had ever heard, but also a rickety one, as if he was scared of receiving an answer, and also receiving none at all. And finally he could manage a word, "John, I – I'm sorry for all the kerfuffle, pal. I had a funny turn. A dream."

The door beat open. Heathcliff stood in the threshold scowling at him, panting like a pregnant bitch. His tongue swirled his lower lip in a strange, reptilian motion, and then he clenched his teeth, baring them, taking two handfuls of his shirt and balling his fists.

"_Who_ –" he seethed, speaking through his teeth, "who let you in here?"

"Zillah, she thought it'd be the most suitable."

"_Suitable_!" he exclaimed, and then coughed out laughter that was definitely a result of shock and anger rather than amusement. It sounded like a broken shredder. "I do _not_ let people in this room."

"I'm sorry if I've caused a problem, though I would like to leave this room, if that's alright? It's like something out of fucking_ Most Haunted_." He stood up quickly, brushed himself down, and rubbed the nape of his neck dry.

Those black eyes were shining stark out of Heathcliff's face, jutting about the room, wild as a dog in the final throes of rabies. "What?"

"In all honesty this place does look like one of those old houses on that programme. I think I just fancy it for one. I seemed to imagine little Catherine Linton haunts the bloody place," Lockwood pointed to the headboard of the bed and popped his eyes, shrugging, "that her soul was trapped here for twenty years, something like that. She was asking to come in. I let my imagination run away with me too much. I'm a writer and –"

Any composure Heathcliff had seemed to die in that instant – a noise came from the back of his throat, as if he was gargling milk, and then he stormed into the room and sat on the bed, directly facing the window, his lower lip dithering. His black hair reflected rainbow lights in the dark, like the oily feathers of a crow. Lockwood watched him, confused.

"Take my room," Heathcliff said suddenly, in the most determined, hungry tone he'd ever heard – Lockwood had noticed he always spoke with little emotion, but now he seemed to be restraining an unfamiliar, violent surplus of it. "Or walk somewhere. I won't sleep tonight because of – of your _ridiculous_ fucking noises. I won't be a minute, just – I –"

He took it as a cue to leave, but as his foot hit the carpeted floor of the hallway Heathcliff burst out a sore roaring sound from his throat, jittering, his body swelling as he stretched and wretched out tears in some sort of irrepressible passion. He snapped open the gold latch with his long dark fingers and then flung his face into the rain, the wet slithers of black hair writhing across his cheeks. He snatched his hands out too, grasping at the thin air, almost lifting half of his body into the mad, swirling ice, soaking his shirt until he wore a dripping ghost of the garment.

"Come in! Come in! Cathy – oh, _Cathy_, _please_, once more! _Please_ come in!" The sobbing was earnest, terrified, _starving_. Lockwood stood, compelled to continue to watch, as all people are, the destruction of another. "Don't leave!"

And as they always do, the 'ghost' remained silent and unseen, mocking him almost – Lockwood had an odd sense perhaps little Cathy enjoyed these tears. He left the room abruptly when he began raking his hands, his nails, down his face – it was too much to bear considering a stupid dream of his had been its causation. He wandered about the hallway searching for the stairs.

Down there was the cleaner, holding a yellow polishing rag. She was falling asleep in the red leather armchair by the fireplace in the reception room. She had a rosy face, chubby, papery, with fair hair tied in a loose bun and a simple black dress. She was stirring, but he had no idea as to whether sensing his presence had woken her or, perhaps, she was likewise caught in the icy clutches of little Cathy.

"Excuse me?"

Her eyes slid open. "Yeah?"

"Would you mind if I sat with you? I'm not sleeping too good."

"They put you in Catherine's room, no wonder. I'm pretty sure he'll have chucked you out and strung you up in a bit." She referred to Heathcliff in a bitter way, her lips pinching dryly like an oboe player. "Sit down though, there. It's nice to have some other company. Cathy isn't too much fun these days."

"Cathy?" he yelped.

"His daughter-in-law."

Why the fuck would someone name her Cathy? He didn't understand and he made it blatant to her, raising an eyebrow and shaking his head.

"She was married to Heathcliff's son, who's Mother was Isabella Linton. Her brother Edgar married Catherine Earnshaw and had the little bloody madam you met today, Cathy Linton. Or Heathcliff, now. She married her cousin, but he died a little while after they were married."

"Is that... is that even legal?"

"Perfectly legal. Just disapproved of," she shrugged. "It doesn't seem to matter what folk think around here anymore though. It's like we're a million miles away, we're out in the jungle."

Heathcliff, he understood, must've loved the rule of the jungle, and being the big cat he was.

"Unmistakably." _A weird, haunted incestuous jungle_, he thought. "When will the snow have cleared?"

"Tomorrow afternoon I'd guess," she said sleepily. "You'll be stuck here for a while."

He couldn't help thinking perhaps he was not the only one. Upstairs he heard Heathcliff shut the window and scream "_Come home!"_

Perhaps they were all stuck here for a reason of their own, all trapped. Heathcliff he knew was bound to the place by ties stronger than reasoning. The woman looked up to the ceiling and slowly, painfully almost, closed her eyes against it. "Come _home_ to me!" he went again and her fingers curled a little in her lap and her eyes stayed closed.

Lockwood sat there, frowning. The day –


	2. Chapter 2

_August 1993_

_-_ Heathcliff came to Wuthering Heights was hot. The air seemed to be crawling, twitching with insect-life. The shade was warm and soured and the sky was a dead, clouded stretch of pale colour. It was all heat, a sweaty residue was sticking Cathy's hair to the nape of her neck and there was sandy dryness in her mouth, prickly-heat screaming up her throat. Dad had them assembled in the reception room. On his return from Liverpool to inspect two Appaloosa horses to trade he'd promised her and Howard a present each. She awaited hers eagerly; while riding horses was fun, in summer all she wanted was to go faster, fast enough to create an artificial breeze, wipe dead flies off the blinders. She had requested a whip, for soon she would be seven and allowed a larger horse, and Howard, being mad on acoustic guitar playing for a full year, asked for some nylon guitar strings. As they waited Howard sat against the arm of the red leather chair, tapping his fingernails, and Mum fluttered around the windows like a stupid moth watching for him. Cathy stayed back a little, licked her index finger thick enough to leave a globule of moisture, and wrote her name in the dust on the side of the fireplace. It took exactly seven minutes of waiting, Cathy counted.

Dad strode out of the jaguar and shut the door gently, but instead of bringing a contract in his little black leather case or going to the boot to retrieve their usual business trip presents, he went around the car and opened the passenger seat door. He was wearing his usual soft grey suit, tailored around his beer belly and chubby neck. Mum began slinking the latches over the double doors and then pulled them open, bending her knees to gather the strength. Her blue sundress whirred around her knees as the air came in and blew Cathy's name, in dust, off the marble. Following Dad was a little black head.

"Peter?" Mum squeaked. "What – who _is_ this?"

Cathy went running to her and leaned up against her waist, her jaw clicking open like a broken mouse trap. It was a _boy_, slightly taller than she was. It was silkily dark-skinned, black or Hispanic, and dirty. He was wearing no shoes and an old, school-like shirt with grass-stains on the knees of his jeans. His whole face was smudged darkly, filthily, and he was purple beneath the eyes from nightmares. She couldn't see much of his body as it was wrapped in a bitty grey woollen blanket. He did nothing but stare up at her from under his longish black hair, the curls falling into his eyes. His eyes were bold and black, staring with the unnerving beauty of an unfamiliar cat, with long lashes like a girl. His mouth was slick and cruel-looking as it flinched over his teeth, and Cathy thought of animals twitching inside of their muzzles.

"Everyone," said Dad carefully. Mum gasped.

"Peter, what in the _name_ of _Christ_? Who _is_ this boy?"

Dad placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I found him. On the street. Wrapped up in about fifty blankets, I thought he was an old man until I looked. I couldn't – well – I couldn't just leave him there."

"This is somebody's child!"

"One that was _begging_ outside of a pub," Dad insisted. "He has no-one. Nothing. He's been stealing and begging, we had to return at least fifty quid to blokes in the pub before we left."

"Then what is he doing _here_? That vase _alone_ is worth –"

"It's all he knows. We'll teach him better, make him into a new boy, a nice boy."

"He's not Pinocchio Dad, for God's sake."

Dad gave Howard a stern look, pinching his brow, and then patted the boy on the shoulder. "He doesn't even have a name. He won't tell me it. So, I think he's someone in need of a little TLC, and we've plenty of time and room to give it, haven't we? We –"

"You need your _bloody_ head examining Peter Earnshaw!" Mum bellowed, marching over to him and pushing him back with the flat of her hand. "Are you out of your mind? We can't just _keep_ him!"

And so she went on. Cathy stood at the door and Howard, slowly but carefully, grabbed her ear and pulled it upwards towards his mouth. He had warm acidy breath and it tickled her neck. She wriggled, but she would not cry, because she could happily refuse, and it would only annoy him further. Howard sometimes liked her tears when he was bored.

"Stay away from it," he said suddenly. "He'll be taken by the social in no time. It must be an AIDS baby. It's Mum's probably a scouse whore! "

"Why is he so dirty?" she asked.

"Because he's the dirty sort. He's a tramp, Cathy."

Mum screamed like a B-movie damsel. "It's – Peter he's – he's – wee! It's weeing itself!"

Surely enough the smell of stewing urine in the sunlight hurt Cathy's eyes and soaked the boy's feet. He seemed not to understand, but smiled, strangely, somewhat pleasurably, at Mum's disgusted face.

Howard grasped her wrist and pulled in inwards. "We have to stay away. Don't touch it, Cath. Don't go anywhere near it."

She didn't plan to, unless it was to tease it. It'd be like trapping a spider beneath a glass and roasting it on the window sill. It was the simple things in life that secretly entertained her.

Nonetheless, despite Mum crying all evening in the kitchen and refusing to speak, the little boy stayed at the house. He was about to be washed. Howard had called her to witness it.

"Next thing you know Dad'll be holding his cock to teach him to piss," he remarked. Cathy laughed, though she didn't fully understand. He was in the bathroom full of white tiles, and his feet had left a grubby print on the rug. He was sat in the bath, his whole body writhing in it, glittering and sliding wetly, his eyes closed. He looked peaceful. He awkwardly scrubbed a bar of lavender soap against his throat, and Cathy watched intently as the clean water trailed slowly down to his collar bone and swirled in the dark little space, the rock pools joining his shoulder and neck. More water ran down him in rivers and broke into deltas across him, and now his skin looked lighter and strong and soft as new leather. His tongue slid out, ripe and pink, and danced across his lower lip. Cathy watched.

"Here!" Howard called to him, and opened the door wide. Cathy's eyes snapped back up to Howard's face. The boy stared at him. "A towel to dry yourself." And he threw in the cloth used to rest the horse shoes on. It was trampled with straw and shit. He was so dirty it was probably what he would have most been pleased with, Cathy mused, and giggled into Howard's thigh. He stared at them both, a frown puckering his forehead, and then Howard grabbed her once again by the hair and tugged her away.

It remained that way for two days. Dad asked if she would be so kind as to share her room with him, and they set out the camp bed from their last holiday in Cornwall, snuggled in tents. It was directly before her bed, so if she sat up in the night she'd see his strange staring-cat eyes. She refused to accept the idea.

He came to bed on both evenings and stood outside her door, "I'm getting changed," she told him, "don't you dare come in or I'll get my Dad to box ya ears." And like a good pet he stayed outside. She did not unlock the door. When she went downstairs to breakfast each morning Howard had spat a heavy slug of clear snot onto his forehead, and slowly it slid down his nose. Cathy had remained gazing at him for a minute on the second morning, and he stared back at her in that weird way of his, like a doll with glass eyes, as it slithered down his cheek. She could not tell if it was hardness or gentleness that kept him mute throughout the whole minute, or the whole day; Howard's jibes were never ending, and she noticed queasily he had kicked him so hard his dark skin had bruises flowering up all over.

Most nights, just after she locked the door, she could hear them shouting, Dad and Howard. It might be a door slamming, a single booming note, one time something falling and breaking with a porcelain clatter – something was always happening, someone was always raging. The boy sat outside of her room silently and she was almost sure he took some sort of pleasure from it. After all, how could he sit, in dumb insolence, and do nothing, not fight, not raise his voice, raise a fist, raise his blood pressure, while the others did? She hated him for being such a pussy, like Howard did.

They were a Christian family, a proud family, with honour and a crest and whatever else. Names travelled down bloodlines, names and noses, eyes, mouths. Howard reminded her of this as much as he could, because Dad professed a very similar ethic about Earnshaw pride, just but not so much Earnshaw genetics and superiority. She didn't know what to believe.

Within two days the boy was Christened into theirs, and God's, family. The vicar regarded him with a calm, pleasantly private resentfulness. She spoke about God, gesturing repeatedly to the high candled dribbling wax in its golden stand. Underneath the coloured glass the boy was stained streaky red as a skinned pig. The sun made a tear in his eye glitter. Dad had dressed him in one of Howard's old suits, simple and black, a white shirt. They had all been forced to dress up in their best, so Cathy chose her favourite dark blue velvet dress with the white ribbon sash. They all stood by their pews and Mum squeezed her eyes shut every so often. "Heathcliff Earnshaw," said the vicar, "receive the sign of the cross." Well, he would not accept it. She made a messy squiggle on his forehead with oil and then he howled and ran out.

The church was in the village. Where they lived, Cathy knew nothing but grass, little hills, ragged rocks full of minerals and secrets. She went to school in Harrogate, but as mindless and bleak as the moors could be she understood them better than any network of roads or signposts. Heathcliff went running out into it. She liked the name.

"Good fuckin' riddance," Howard muttered. Mum gave him a sharp word in his ear. Dad looked terrified, ashamed, and Cathy knew now Heathcliff would be wandering around, alone. She had to find him; she could smell him out, his grime and sweat and nastiness. She felt as if she had pins and needles in her head. Pumping her elbow into Howard's stomach she ran out after him.

"Cathy!" Dad called her, "No, Cathy! Come _back_!"

She did not go back, of course, and forced the doors open out into the drizzle of Sunday. She had seen his head had gone just beyond the brown bricked walls surrounding the churchyard. Graves sat in neat little lines where the dead people lay side by side, whispering beneath her feet. She scuttled over them hurriedly, shouting, "Heathcliff?"

No answer came. He would have walked back up from the village, into the tangled green and deeper dark of the moor, cloudy and sodden in mist. "Heathcliff?" she called. The wind boomed off her ears. "Heathcliff!" She vaulted herself over the wall, scraping the heel of her hand a scratchy blackish red, like a rotten apple skin. "Heathcliff!" Her hair clawed into her eyes. "Heathcliff!" She ran and ran up, her socks squelching in her loafers (Mum would go spare), grass hissing at her side. She was nearing the top of a small hill now.

And there he was, just wandering. He sounded like he was jangling with something, pennies or bangles. His hair was fluttering over his ears, and Howard's blazer lay, trampled and soaking up mud, its one arm waving in the wind like a wounded ghoul. Getting closer she noticed tiny droplets of sweat on the back of his neck, heard his sharp exhalation, noticed the flush in his face like sweet, warm wine.

"Heathcliff!"

He turned slowly, his head rocking on his neck, his eyes half-closed, dark, intent, lazy. He stopped. His shirt was stuck to him with circles of wetness under his arms, on the small of his back, his chest. His whole body squeezed and sagged with his breathing.

"Don't run away!" she demanded, finally close enough to talk. "Why did you go?"

He glowered at her, "Why do you want to know?"

She was stunned that he had actually responded, but her frustration lessened her surprise greatly. He sounded strange, as though he had a throat infection or cottonmouth. "Are you not even going to bother to thank my Dad, then? You're just going to run away again, after he let you stay with us?"

He scoffed, "I'd rather _not_, trust me."

"What was wrong?"

"I was better off before," he answered gruffly. "Your brother is a bully and a twat. You're not much better either."

Cathy scowled, "You're really ungrateful!"

"What exactly have I got to be grateful for?"He snickered.

"We let you stay in the house and you were all dirty! How many people would let you do that?"

"Oh, shut up," he said absently. "I'd rather have been outside freezin' my bollocks off."

"Well I think you're a nasty idiot!" Cathy bellowed, enraged. He'd caused her nothing but hassle since his arrival, and now he dared to laugh about it all. She already hated him.

"I think you're a bitch," he shrugged. Cathy wondered where in the world he'd managed to pick up so many naughty words. Where did he come from? Who spoke like that to him? Howard had taught her a few naughty words of course, in secret in exchange for bonbons, so she could fire them at Mum to scare her and get what she wanted, or at least give herself the giggles.

He put his hand in his pocket and squeezed, and suddenly she realised what the noise must have been; she had lost her change to give to the collection plate just before he had been guided to the font.

"You've stolen my collection plate money, haven't you?" she growled.

"At least you're cleverer than he is." He lifted a single pound coin out of his pocket and then dropped it back inside.

"Give that back!" she yowled, outraged. "You dirty horrible bastard!"

He laughed at the silent grey sky. She tried to think of more naughty words and could only recall two, and so used them both awkwardly.

She screamed a single, hawkish note. "Give it _back_! You – you bloody – you bloody fucking _tramp_!"

"I wish you'd just change the record," he said calmly.

"Give it to me!"

"Give me a reason," he chuckled.

She had never been denied anything she wanted if she cried, and she did not understand this total injustice – she was _crying_. Or at least the blood had rushed into her face and she was angry enough to, which was enough. "Because I want it!"

This, she was sure, was a perfectly acceptable answer. He shook his head. "Wow. You're more of a snooty bitch than I thought you were in the first place."

Crazed in her anger she lashed out her open hand and closed it around a large portion of thick, soft black curls. With all her strength she yanked down on it, and he wailed and his knees buckled like a foal's.

"Get off!" he snapped, "Ah! Get off, get _off_ ah say!" He struggled against her, raking his raggedy nails over her hand. She pulled him backwards so he hit the floor with a sickly _clack_ of his teeth. The sky was reflected in the dark of his eyes and the drizzle hit his face gently, forcing him to flutter his eyelashes. He was gasping for breath. She stamped on a clear black bruise on his forearm. He screamed.

"Give me the money!" she shouted.

"No!"

She straddled his torso, the hem of her dress drinking up the mud. "I mean it Heathcliff, or I'll bite you, I'll rip you up!"

Even with his uneven breathing he managed a curious smile. "Go on, then. Go on. I dare you! You won't hurt me, you –"

Cathy was too far consumed in her anger to calculate consequence. She dug her teeth into the lower corner of his face, his jaw, as hard as she could, and then scratched down his throat. A little bit of blood spouted out, rich and tangy, coppery, into her mouth. She couldn't tell if it was the scratch or bite that had made him bleed. His blood was a tantalising red, though she had imagined it'd seep out purple and treacly as snake venom. His whole body bucked under the shock and pain of it.

"No! Ah – O.K. – take it! It's in –"

The next thing he felt was her tiny little fingers brushing inside of the cloth of his pocket, against his upper thigh, prodding carefully, rolling. His groin burst into a heat, a pulsation. But then it was gone, and she stuffed the money back into her breast pocket.

She then dropped herself onto her hands, placing them either side of his head so their noses were inches from touching, and their breath mingled in a warm, soggy vapour between them. His eyes devoured her face with a rapid fervour. Her lips were thick and dry like her hands, a deep, tart-looking pink. She had a small, gently curved chin and eyes too blue to be real, peculiar, cold and fast and alive as the sea. The ends of her brown hair, fuzzy, kinked, sticking out in all the wrong places, swirled against his cheek.

"You've hurt me," he whispered hatefully, "I – I'm bleeding."

Her eyes moved slowly down to the gloopy mixture of blood and saliva on his cheek. She scrubbed it away with her hand. "I didn't know it would bleed," she said honestly. It continued to weep steadily. She stared, worried.

"You need to hold your hand against it," Heathcliff said, "to stop the bleeding, to stem it."

"I didn't mean for it to bleed," she insisted, and obeyed him, cupping her hand against the side of his face.

"No, I know," he answered. They remained staring at each other for several minutes, in total silence. Cathy yanked her sleeve over her hand and used it as a strange velvet bandage for his face, and then she rolled off him and sat next to him, breathing lightly.

"Where are you from?" she asked him slowly. "Howie, he says you're an AIDS baby and a tramp and that your bloods made of germs."

"I dunno whether any of that's true," he shrugged, "but it could be."

"Does that mean I might die now, because I've drank some of your blood?"

His eyes slinked over the sky until they reached her face. "Maybe."

He had meant to scare her, but it didn't work very well at all. "I'm too strong though," she smirked. "You can't kill me, I won."

"Maybe I let you win."

"No ya didn't," she laughed. "Because I'm like – well, I'm really strong and fast and things."

"Well maybe I'm not an AIDS baby, maybe I've been bitten by a radioactive spider," he suggested, grinning.

"But then I'd have super powers because I've drank some of your blood!" she exclaimed, "See? You can't win, Heathcliff."

"I'll win another time," he sighed, "you'll see."

"I thought you were going away though?"

He couldn't tell anymore. She was ever so ever so pretty, and her touch was medicinal, like cool water over a burn, like the gritty clot of medicine, so calming and sickly in the gullet. He closed his eyes carefully against the drizzle and sighed, trying to lean into her hand delicately enough for her not to notice.

But she noticed.

"I'm sorry, do I need to put more pressure on?"

"Yes," he answered instantly, without thinking. He felt stupid for simply allowing himself to forgive her so easily, but he couldn't seem to help himself. She felt much better than leaning on a woollen blanket or, even worse, the crumbling brick of a wall or a section of pavement, free from bird shit and chewing gum but nonetheless reeking of cat piss.

"O.K., sorry."

"Its fine," he replied, keeping his voice hushed. He didn't want to end the moment. The grass was the richest green here and the heather was gorgeously purple. There were goldenrods collecting dead bluebottles about them, and a small spider web had been weaved between the petals and leaves and was glistening bright white with jewels of water. The rain, for a change, was feathery soft and sizzled against the sweat on his face wonderfully, slithered into his mouth in between his teeth, nourished him – and _Cathy was here_, Cathy with her breathy chirpy voice and her sparrowy giggles and greyish warm hands.

"Will you leave because I didn't let you have a bed?" she asked. In honesty the answer was no; he had much appreciated their beige carpet. Her brother had been the main problem, that and the stuffy church and their stuffy Mother.

"Yeah," he lied; if he offended her again he was pretty sure she would gouge out his eye and lick off the juice like a summer ice cream. He liked her.

"Well how about then, Heathcliff, if I say you can stay in the camp bed Dad set up for you? It's in my room though, so you're not to look at me without my pyjamas on."

It seemed like a fair exchange.

"Alright, then. I'll come back."

She smiled at him, a tiny tug of her lips. She seemed happy. "And you'll say sorry?"

"It depends."

"What does it depend on?"

"On whether you'll stop 'em from having a go at me."

"What do you mean?"

"About Howard's jacket – I threw it in the mud. And, for upsetting your Dad."

"I think of something, then."

Cathy removed her hand and stood, and so did he. Against the grass the print of his blood on her skin was stark, gaudy red. It had dried on her stickily, combined with sweat and dirt, a bold red tar, raspberry jam.

"It's marked me!" she laughed, rubbing at it. It did nothing but stain the rest of her hand, her fingers, and then, as she went to lick it off, her mouth.

Heathcliff swallowed.

* * *

**A/N: And so begins yet another Wuthering Heights modernisation. I hope everyone is enjoying it so far - any ideas or critique (and also praise!) is always greatly appreciated. Thank you and well done for getting this far! Please let me know what you think!**


	3. Chapter 3

"What's that?" Howard asked.

"Jam," Cathy lied. She linked her fingers together and held them behind her back, staring up into her brother's brown mousy eyes. Heathcliff stood behind her, his head bowed, reeking of a quiet darkness. He hadn't shut the door behind him. In the background the moor was roaring with the wind in its long, sticky grass.

"Jam, is it?" Howard smirked. "And where exactly," he reached forward slowly and trailed his index finger, pressing hard enough to make her pucker her face, just under her lower lip, "did you get jam out there?" He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise as he inspected the red substance, eerily cold on her skin. "My, my, Cath. It don't look a lot like jam to me."

"Well it is jam," she spat at him. "You don't even like jam, you wouldn't know."

"I know what jam looks like."

"Just leave me alone, Howie!" She went to run past him, but he was too quick and far too big. He lunged out for her, caught her whole shoulder in the palm of his hand, and pushed her back into her original position, smiling with all of his small teeth.

"No," he said, elongating the vowel snidely. "It's alright, Cathy. You needn't be scared – you can admit it."

"I didn't steal nothing!" Cathy barked.

"No, you can admit that he hit you. Obviously he's done something to hurt ya, Cath – it's alright –"

"Well you know sod all!" she squawked, "He hasn't hit me or done anything! So leave me alone!"

Howard chuckled. "Cathy, stay put."

"Oh, my _bum_, Howard!" she snapped, and then kicked him as hard as she could. Howard made a painful noise by sucking in a breath through his teeth, and Cathy took the opportunity to run for the staircase, with Heathcliff closely following her. Her little patent red buckle-up shoes beat the wood with a wonderful thick sound. Her legs were strong and handsomely curved. He noticed that she was wearing white cotton knickers as her dress bounced on her waist, and one thick periwinkle-blue vein wove up under the hem and broke off at the end like the tongue of a cobra. Heathcliff looked away quickly. In the hallway Cathy walked hurriedly to her room, the second door on the left, and swooshed the door open, exhaling hard.

"Oh, God, I'm glad we made it," she giggled, "I do like running away, especially when I feel like I might get caught."

Heathcliff gave her a coy smile, "Yeah."

"Well, we need to clean ourselves up or Howie will tell everyone you've hit me," she said, clapping her hands together and frowning. "So, I'll go into the bathroom and wash my face and things, and you go and find some new clothes and then we'll swap."

"O.K.."

She walked out of her room and left him. He found out some of Howard's old clothes in the tall wardrobe. Each item was particularly embarrassing in its own way, perhaps they were presents from aunts or grandparents; he picked out a scratchy grey woollen jumper and heaved it over his head, popping the buttons of his shirt quickly, wincing at its tightness over his shoulders. The jeans weren't too bad, but they clung to his thighs in an awkwardly feminine sort of fashion. He squeezed his eyes shut, briefly enjoying the swollen darkness and ululating colours there. Hopefully Cathy was too busy running around or chewing her hair to notice him.

She came whirling back with her face palely clean and soap-foam still sliding down on the right side of her face. She was rubbing her eyes.

"Soap in the eye!" she sighed. "You can go and wash now if you want."

He went into the bathroom and sloshed a few handfuls of water over his face and across his neck, drying his skin with the luxuriously rough side of the towel. When he returned, Cathy was sat on the bed, swinging her legs, dressed in a red cotton button-down blouse and camel-coloured trousers, soft and expensive-looking.

He thought of her father's clothes when he had met him in Liverpool, how they had felt on his face as he slung his beefy arm across his shoulders and led him to a cafe. He'd been bought a meat pie and chips with mint mushy peas. They sat at a plastic red and white chequered table on flimsy chairs and said he had been asked a few questions, with a crinkly smile, like _Where is your Mother? What is your name? How old are you? Whose money is that? _He knew the answers to only two of those questions, and he wasn't very willing to answer despite the bloke's unnatural kindness. _Why did you buy me dinner? _He had asked. _You looked starved, lad, _he answered, _of food and water, love. It's the Christian thing to do._ He swallowed down a gravy-covered clot of beef and offered him a guilty sort of half smile.

"That's better, they'll never know," Cathy sniggered. He nodded. "Why don't you sit down, Heathcliff?"

"Are you actually going to call me that?" he asked, "You've really named me?"

"Well yeah, you're my Dad's now."

"Like a car or a dog?" he scoffed.

"Like a _baby_," Cathy answered cheerily. He paused to think about this, watching her carefully as she beamed up into him and began patting the white duvet invitingly. "And I think Heathcliff is a really nice name."

"I'm nothing like you," he said quietly, leaning back against the wall.

"I'm my Dad's baby," she shrugged, "so are you."

"But I'm different coloured. Everyone will know –"

"You're _nice_ coloured. Like Cadbury hot chocolate! It doesn't matter. Dad wants you here, that's what's important."

"Well, you don't want me here."

"Yeah, I don't know what I think of you, you're ever so funny," she agreed, pressing her lips together, "you talk funny don't you?"

"I'm not from around here."

"Where are you from then?"

"Where do you think I'm from?" he smirked. "It's a good an idea as mine."

"Ooh, now that's a fun game. Where Did Heathcliff Come From?" she giggled, and dropped back into the bed, gazing at the ceiling. "Maybe you're from a family of Arabian snake charmers or a travelling circus."

"Maybe I am."

"Maybe you're a secret lion tamer!" Cathy had the strange feeling that Heathcliff would find a lion much better company than herself at the moment. She huffed in frustration and slapped the bed beside her. "Oh just sit down!"

He watched her cautiously, with graceful little turns of his head like a like a curious cat.

"I won't be mean, I promise," Cathy reasoned with him. "Don't you want to be friends?"

"I've never been bothered about friends," he shrugged. Cathy shook her head.

"I'm a very good friend. I'll steal you extra coconut cake at dinner. I used to do it for the birds!"

"What birds?"

"Well, those birds," Cathy pointed to the window. Heathcliff saw through the misty glass a circular shape of odd black stars in the sky, swirling and diving. He frowned.

"They eat cake?"

"They eat bread and cake and all sorts of things," Cathy said incredulously. "What, you don't know what birds eat?"

He gave her a quick smile, dangerous as jagged glass, "I don't know what _people_ eat, hardly."

Cathy jolted upright and stared at him wildly. "How can you not _know_?"

"Well, I'd see something," he explained, his voice trembling slightly in shame, "and if it looked like food I'd just eat it."

"On the floor?"

"Usually. Or in a bin. Anywhere really."

"Didn't you get ill?"

"Yeah."

"What, just 'yeah'?"

"Yeah, just yeah."

Cathy grunted at him. "You're so nasty."

"I'm not."

"Well, sit down with me then!" she exclaimed, "At _least_ sit down with me."

Heathcliff did as he was told silently, sitting on the foot of the bed and hanging his head. She scooted to sit beside him. He hadn't washed his neck properly – an oily black tinge was glistening on the back of his neck in the sunlight and he smelt like earth and wet moss and wild animal shit.

"You didn't wash properly," Cathy rolled her eyes. "Do you know how to do _anything_?"

He scowled at her. His eyes were so dark they were reflective, so dark there was no _inside_, black like beetles. She swore as they moved across her face they made a scuttling sound. They paused on her mouth.

"Shut up," he muttered.

"But you smell horrible, Heathcliff," she mumbled, "Why don't you just run a bath?"

"I've never run a bath."

"Well then I can teach –"

"I don't need you to teach me _anything_." He stood up, and pushed her shoulder flimsily, causing her to rock back into the bed, "I _definitely_ don't you want to be your friend."

He started walking away.

"Heathcliff!"

He carried on walking, out of the room. Cathy lay back on the bed and sighed angrily. In the hallway she could quite clearly hear Howard shouting at him, shouting something, and then Heathcliff said, "I don't know what you mean," in his funny voice and everything went silent.

The house was quiet for the rest of the day. Mum wasn't feeling too well, and so the bowl of currant cake mix sat on the countertop in the kitchen, forlorn. Cathy watched it hungrily. Dad had served them up ham sandwiches and salad for dinner, but it was the thicker ham that tasted fresh of pigs and had lanes of fat curling all over it, squelching and sparkling between the bread. She didn't like it. Howard refused to eat in front of Heathcliff in case he got AIDS, he said. Cathy sat opposite him, blinking, watching him heave the food into his face and chew it with his mouth wide open, so she could see the soggy lumps of food on his tongue. He didn't talk to her. It felt a lot like the night he had first arrived, because Dad didn't talk to them either.

"If you want to be accepted into this family, you'd better be accepted into God's, lad," he said sternly, his teeth snapping closed and open around the words. "I'll bloody well expect you at confirmation. I will _bloody well_ expect it."

Heathcliff nodded sullenly.

"And you best be askin' God to forgive you tonight, _both_ of you," he continued, "Cathy, how hard is it to be a good lass?"

Cathy grinned at Heathcliff, and he stared at her with eyes like a dead bird and did nothing. "It's very hard, for me."

"Then you'll be trying harder, or you'll both be out on your arses," Dad grumbled. That was the last word spoken. After that Cathy retreated to the sitting room to watch TV after being instructed to leave Mum alone, and Heathcliff went wandering again. Howard was stomping around upstairs. Dad started barking something at him just after she heard him walking down the stairs. The news blathered its usual panic and destruction. Cathy sat by the window, leaning over the back of the sofa staring out onto the moors through the gap between the curtains. The rain spattered against the windows like wet sand, and outside the night was a ripple of dark green and blue and black, as though she was face down in the sea at night. She wondered where the birds were sleeping in the rain – did it fall through the leaves in the trees, make them wet and cold? Did they hide? Could they see the same in the dark?

She sat back and thought of Heathcliff, a lonely bird. She imagined him hiding from rain in his nest, shaking in the cold, eating scraps of bread off the grass in the park, blind. It was so very sad, and even though he had been mean she would forgive him. He wanted a friend really. Who wouldn't have?

He would be in the hallway, she imagined, curled up in the corner by her door most probably. The heat from the two radiators circulated and met there in a cosy chasm, it was the perfect place. She popped up from her seat and made her way up the stairs, humming _Kookaburra_ to comfort herself in the dark. He was right where she expected, wearing Howard's old grey pyjamas.

"Heathcliff," she told him, sticking her nose in the air, "I'm going to bed now, and I promised you that you could stay in the room."

He blinked at her from under his hair. He decided he would answer to that name, if she thought it nice.

"Oh, are you not talking to me now?" she hissed. "Well, fine then. If don't want to be my friend, I don't really _care_. I've got plenty of friends at school anyway." With that, she walked into her room, leaving the door open for him. He didn't speak, but the floorboards made their familiar satisfied groan as he stood. He followed her inside. The green canvas camp bed was set up opposite hers. She had put one of her pillows there and a cream coloured blanket.

"Thank you for the pillow," he muttered. She nodded.

"Don't look at me."

"What?" he blurted, terrified. Looking at her seemed to be the only reason to stay here at the moment.

"I'm putting my pyjamas on," she answered directly. "So don't look at me."

"O.K.."

He stood there and waited eagerly.

"Well, turn around then, Heathcliff!"

He smiled at her coyly and turned, folding his arms over his chest. She didn't move for a moment, he saw by her shadow in the wall before him. She paused to see if he would turn around. Assured he wouldn't, the shadow folded into itself like a paper angel, and then stretched. She was pulling her blouse over her head. He gently tilted his nose to the side. From the corner of his eye he saw the length of her back, the skin like brandy cream, delicious looking, taught and soft pulled over her small bones. When she turned he saw the angle of her stomach, slightly, childishly domed above her knickers. The trousers came next. He saw the cobra-tongue-vein beneath her bum, bright blue. He gulped down the taste in his mouth like a burnt fuse.

She slipped the pyjamas on then, pastel-yellow, with daisies on the hems. "You can turn around now," she instructed. He did.

"So, we'll go to sleep now, I suppose," she shrugged, clambering into her bed and yanking the duvet up under her arms. "Turn out the light, will you?"

Heathcliff clicked the light switch and hungered madly for a source of light – he had so been looking forward to this, after all, seeing her asleep. Although she had angered him earlier, still his desire to see her, hear her, feel her hadn't died, or even dampened.

"Heathcliff?" she called through the black gulf between them, "where are you?"

"Here," he whispered to her. She exhaled.

"Will you be able to find the bed?"

"Yeah," he responded dully. The camp bed was thin and sunk dramatically with his weight, forcing him to arch his neck against the pillow. The room went silent, and stayed that way for several minutes. The stillness was then frequently broken by the scratchy sound of him turning on the canvas material.

"Heathcliff!" Cathy growled, "Be quiet!"

"I'm trying to get comfy," he bit back. She made an angry sort of noise, like _umph!_

"Well, will you hurry _up_?"

"_No_!" he growled, and then began tossing and turning rapidly, as though he was rolling down a hillside.

"Oh, _shut_ up!"

"Why don't _you_ shut up, if you want everything to stay quiet?"

She made the angry noise again, and then he next thing he felt was her tiny hand swat him on the shoulder. He swiped out at the air, but caught nothing, and she laughed, sweetly spiteful.

"Silly, you should eat more carrots so you can see in the dark," she whispered. He closed his eyes. He could feel her breath stirring the hairs on top of his head. The notion of her closeness was just wondrous, and hearing her voice so quiet, whispery. The sound rang out in him like a scream through a cut-glass vase.

"Where are you?" he whispered back.

"I'm waiting for you to get up, so we can swap beds."

"Swap?"

"So you'll just shut up!" she snapped.

"But it's _your_ bed."

"Heathcliff," she whispered again, and then her hand pulled the blanket off him. "Come on, I'm getting cold." Her little hand was very cold; he felt it even through his pyjama shirt. He grimaced.

"Well, it's colder here, so get back in your bed," he said carefully.

"But you're not feeling comfy," she stated, as though this was somehow perfect reason for him to allow her to shiver to sleep. He scoffed.

"Well I'm not moving."

"Well neither am I."

There was a small stretch of silence, and then she mumbled, "We can just both get in the bed."

His heart boomed in his mouth.

"But we can't do that."

"Yes we can. Please, I just want to go to sleep now."

That cold little hand crawled over his arm, gentle as a money spider, and then pinched his skin sharply. He jumped, "Ow!"

"Move, then!"

He did as she asked. He sat up, and she guided him by yanking his collar, making him stumbled against the bedside.

"Get in," she demanded. He felt his way under the duvet and slid his legs inside, pleasurably feeling the warm ghost-shape her body had left on the bed sheet. The mattress shifted under him as she climbed inside and flapped the duvet over them both. "Now go to sleep, Heathcliff, or I'll smack ya."

Within a few seconds of lying there she turned to face him, murmuring something sleepily. Her fingers were curled up on his pillow, close to his cheek. Her breath was like that sugary fresh-baked warmth on bread. Her mouth puckered in her sleep and her face twitched with the beginnings of a dream. He watched it, awe-struck, biting his lower lip. "Cathy," he whispered.

She opened her eyes.

"Would you smack your friend?"

"Probably not," she sighed.

"Then I want to be your friend."

"Alright," she answered.

Her fingers cracked open like a carnivorous plant. He took it as an invite to place his hand inside. Her fingers closed.

* * *

**A/N: So concludes chapter three! **

**Thank you to the gorgeous cherry-magpie-x, the delectable Cocoriot and the absolutely squillion-percent scrumptious Ashirogi-Muto-L (honestly, these fanboys, what are they like?) for their reviews – your enjoyment and encouragement has been the driving force for this chapter being written, I'd be nowhere without it!**

**I hope everyone enjoys, and please let me know what you think.**


	4. Chapter 4

"What about Catherine?" Mum asked. Her bedroom was like a Turkish bathhouse, covered in a fine layer of sickly, cloying steam from the large quantities of tea and soup she'd been slurping up for the past two days. An empty bone-china bowl of some sort of sloppy syrupy concoction of ground-up vegetables was sat on the bedside table, with a little plastic bottle of Neurofen and a cold, damp flannel. She was wearing her 'poorly clothes', the old nightgown with the teddy-bear print that smelt clinical; pungent with the memory of Cathy's baby-sick and Ultrasound gel.

Bitterly, Howard wrinkled his nose.

"Well, of course, she's with Heathcliff."

"I see. They seem to have become the best of friends, don't they?"

They were outside running around drawing pictures of fucking birds, and here was Mum, lying in her bed drooling clear fluid from the corner of her mouth, waxy-skinned, heaving her breath out through her mouth like she had a broken lawnmower for lungs, squeezing her blood around her meat with painful difficulty, those usually pretty grey eyes glaring up at the ceiling with a terrified, frantic intensity, burst red.

"Yeah, they do," he answered, patting her hand lightly as he sat on the edge of the bed, hovering over her with a glass of water for her to sip. Carefully he fed it to her and then placed her head back on the pillow, holding it in his hand.

"Are you lonely, darling?"

"No," he replied, "I'm angry."

"Why?"

"Because Cath should be here, Mum, and she isn't here."

The last clear memory of his Mother was her closing her eyes and smiling sweetly, her hands folded on her stomach, like she was lay ready for her coffin. He left her to sleep after she insisted Cathy was young and in her right to go out and play. She did not wake up. She had leukaemia, he found out days later. Howard had wondered why the hospital had suddenly let her go, especially when she looked worse than ever. Now he knew she came home to die with her son and her daughter and husband at her bedside. Only he was there. Dad was outside talking to the fucking horses, and Cathy, the giggling idiot, was out on the wide wide moor with a tramp.

When Dad entered her room late in the afternoon Cathy and Heathcliff were still out. Howard could still remember the sound of his knees smacking against the floorboards, right above his head, like the insistent hands of angels knocking in demand of his Mother's soul. Then he heard the crying. He knew what had happened, of course, so he didn't move. The longer he sat in the chair the longer he'd have dumb ignorance of the situation, which was the state he preferred in a stressful time – either that or pure rage.

When Cathy and Heathcliff got home they were sodden in mud and it dripped down Cathy's face, a tear of the blackest joy. Howard snarled. Heathcliff rubbed the dirt off his trainers, ground it into the fibre of the welcome mat, and Howard couldn't help but grimace at the irony – after all, the welcome mat was well and truly slathered in dirt. Dad had taken a tramp into the house and now no-one, especially not the people in the village, gave them even a nod of human-species-acknowledgement.

"Howie!" his sister greeted him with her greasy, war-painted face. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I'm not," he answered her, enjoying the sense of secret power.

Her face fell and the tear of dark happiness slithered into her mouth. "What?"

"If you were here, where you're _supposed to be_, you'd probably know," he seethed. Cathy blinked at him. Heathcliff had the audacity to frown along, like he was a big part of something instead of a big fat bird, a big fat cuckoo crowding their nest, uninvited.

"You're being mean again because I've been out playing," she snapped. "Well, _shut_ up. I don't care what you think anymore Howie, you're turning into a right sod."

"Are you really surprised?"

At that moment Heathcliff's strange, staring cat eyes carefully drifted their gaze to the ceiling.

"What, that you're a sod? Yes I am," Cathy bit at him. "Maybe if you at least tried to spend a bit of time with Heathcliff, instead of tipping olive oil in his pants draw and tripping him up on the stairs you might grow out of it!"

"You're no-one to talk to me about growing up, you're a six-year-old _little girl_, Cathy, cryin' out loud!"

"Why don't you just say what the problem –"

Heathcliff leaned forward. He was stood behind her. His mouth was just beside her ear through the layers of straggly brown curls, falling stormily down the side of her face. He said something. His mouth moved softly and gently around the words and stirred against her hair, his fingers twinkling at his sides with some sort of perverse excitement. Howard glared at him.

"What –"

"Why is Dad crying?" Cathy demanded.

"Go and see," Howard said quietly. She started running and slopped mud across the floorboards. Heathcliff stared at her, watching her leave. Howard could take it no more, watching him stand there, on the welcome mat, so very, _very_ unwelcome. He snorted and vaulted out of the chair, so fast and with such physical and emotional force the chair legs snapped against the wood. Heathcliff turned slowly in his direction, a frown pinching his forehead, regarding him numbly. Howard walked up to him, stuck his face into his face. "My mother," he whispered, "has just died."

He was so close now he could read the mechanisms of bone and muscle moving his throat as he swallowed. Heathcliff blinked. He smelt of the moor, rain, sweat, grass, dirt, nature's vinegars and nectars and salts.

"It's your fault," Howard told him, squinting against the smell and the dirt and the hate. "It's your fucking fault that my Mum is _dead_."

"I haven't killed her," he said sternly, and for a seven-year-old boy he was weirdly ferocious.

"You came here and she got so stressed and she got ill," Howard snarled.

"There's something wrong with her _blood_, you prick. I heard them talking. I haven't done anything. You don't get that through stress!"

"You're forgetting that I'm not Cathy," Howard hissed. Heathcliff pressed his lips together and leaned backward. "I'm not stupid, I'm not little, and I'm not easily-led. I'm not going to listen to any of your lies or be... taken in by any charms, or whatever sort of fucking _witchcraft_ you've put on her. Everything was fine until Dad brought you home. Now you're here Cathy's gone mad and Mum's dead."

Heathcliff shook his head, "You should listen to yourself."

"You should _watch_ yourself."

Howard jabbed his middle finger underneath Heathcliff's chin and felt the swell of his gullet. He hated the boy, and then he smiled, gleefully enjoying the boy's silence and fear and arrogance because God, one day that little cuckoo was gonna be gobbled up in his nest when motherbird wasn't watching.

"You filthy AIDS-riddled prozzy-baby little fucker," Howard spat, and then walked away, "I'm going to find Cathy now, because she'll need a cuddle, because she'll have just discovered her dead mother in bed, because –"

A cry from upstairs, Cathy's, high-pitched and girlish, resonated around the house.

"Heathcliff!"

Howard froze.

"Heathcliff, come here!"

"O.K.!" he shouted. As expected, Howard snatched out for him with zealous hate, but Heathcliff dodged his hand easily and went bounding up the stairs. As he stepped onto the landing, into the soft film of the dark, Howard made a painful sound. Moaning rose about the house, set into the dust of it. In here sounds – laughter, talk, anything – reverberated off the beams, the walls, the wood, your ribcage; and so the moaning doubled upon itself, hollowly echoed itself. It sounded like ghosts, tens of ghosts.

Or maybe it was just Cathy's Mother's spirit, messing with his head, her invisible mouth weeping and drooling and wailing deep into his ear, rattling through him, frightening enough inspire tears. Perhaps she remained alive in her hate for him, _for_ her hate for him. Heathcliff bit his lip and focused. It was Cathy, definitely, she was distinct. She was real. The parents' bedroom was on the right. The door was open. He swallowed down the taste of apprehension, so intense it was thick petrol in his mouth, and walked inside.

Cathy was on her knees beside her Father, her two small hands clasping his back hard. Her knuckles stood out like little white bolts. She was staring at the back of his head, gently sort of thumping him into consciousness. He was lying on the floor, his weight spilling over himself, the bristly black hairs on the small of his back visible; he looked like a sedated pig. He was heaving out his breath. He was red, tears running over his face like grease on a basted pork joint. Heathcliff gazed at the scene, quiet, curious, and Cathy turned to him abruptly.

"H-Heathcliff," she stammered, her peculiarly blue eyes wild, pearly tears on her dirty cheeks. She was jittering, twitching, like a rabbit trapped in a burning thicket. Her lower lip was stuck out, bold red against her smudgy face, full of sticky perspiration. Her hands did not move from her Dad's back. She pointed to the bed after a couple of seconds, her eyes darting over his face, full of some sort of starvation.

Her Mother was there, dead, clearly. Her skin looked sunken, sapped, like wet tissue paper set over her bones. Her eyes were wide open. Her mouth was too. The skin was grey, her eyes were grey, like stone, glass. Dead.

"What happened?" Heathcliff whispered.

Cathy closed her eyes slowly and started shaking her head.

"It wasn't a cold," she mumbled. "She had a problem in her blood and it killed her."

Heathcliff nodded solemnly.

"It was in the afternoon," Cathy continued. She shook her Dad slightly and turned to him. "Dad, please. Come on. Please. Get up, Dad. Come on."

Heathcliff tried to think of words to say – kind words, comforting words. But that was Cathy, Cathy knew the words, Cathy had the language. What, in the world, did Cathy's Dad find comforting, see sense in, but a horse?

He thought of it as soon as he opened his mouth. "She's in heaven now. I'm sure she's in heaven."

Her Father snuffled meekly, and turned his head, still against the floor, to face him.

"Heaven, yes!" Cathy grinned at him through her tears, laughing and crying in Holy chorus, making her voice come out in a staccato rush. Her Father closed his eyes. He smiled in a gentle way, and then sat up. Cathy stood with him and held out her hand to Heathcliff. He took it, relishing the feel of her grime against him, her soft skin, her white pure radiance. He ran his fingers over her knuckles.

Her Father pulled her Mother's dead eyes closed with two probing fingers, kissed her shrivelled lips. He kissed his daughter and Heathcliff on the forehead, once each, and patted the back of their heads. "She can't stay here like this now, can she?" he said calmly. "She'd want her hair well brushed."

Within the hour the funeral directors were called. They met in the kitchen with Dad, and Howard remained in his room, silent, waiting. Cathy, well, she lay in the room, on her bed, next to Heathcliff, rubbing her bare feet against his, wincing and smiling at the pain when his jagged toenails cut her flesh.

* * *

**A/N: Woo! Chapter 4 is doneski, and done so quickly as a special little gift to cherry-magpie-x :)**

**Massive thank-yous and cuddles to the lovely CocoRiot and cherry-magpie-x for their reviews, it means the world!**

**I hope everyone enjoyed. Please let me know what you think!**


	5. Chapter 5

Howard was wearing a black suit and black tie. Outside the sun palely warmed the moor. The tender flower heads and weeds and long grass brushed each other sensuously in the wind. The whole world was full of colour. For a moment Howard thought it was fitting, it made him think of Mum wearing her bright sundresses, work shirts, shoes; but then he remembered. Catching his reflection in the mirror he saw that the world was black, that today was a black day, and those angels, God, had filled his life with colour just to mock him.

"Still moping?"

Cathy had been watching him glower out of the window for a while, he supposed. Of late she seemed to have adapted a little too well to the ways of Heathcliff – she'd begun sneaking up on people, treading quietly. It was most unlike her thunderous previous self, who would've usually been found yowling and stomping about the house. He knew she learnt silence and sneaking because she had to. She had to be quiet now, because, for the first time in her life, little Catherine Earnshaw had a secret to hide.

"I don't like all this sneaking around, Cathy," he said.

"I don't like all of this meanness and nastiness, Howie."

He had to admire her, so harsh, that wit always hitting right on the top of the head, the soft spot, quick as a bloody brick. He smiled at her.

"How would I know what you like at all anymore? You're a different girl."

"You're a different boy, Howie. You used to be kind and now you're always mean to me."

He walked across the room towards her, to look into her face, so much like his, their Mother's, as well as being like nothing he had ever known before. She stood there staring at him boldly, her hands clasped behind her back. Her hair had been pulled into a ponytail, high on her head, clearly Dad's handiwork. It was too tight, the lines of the comb left thin, bright white strips of scalp showing through her dark hair. But, despite that difference, her face remained the same, that tranquil, beautiful, childlike roundness – and that strangely matured venom in her eyes. Her lower lip had a pleasantly red thickness to it, but it made her seem haughty, as though constantly pouting, and the thick, spiky little hairs on her eyebrows were all straight and pointing outwards, giving her smile an almost contemptuous attitude, no matter what form it presented itself in.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "But that's the way things are."

"If you'd just _try_ to be nice, though, it wouldn't be," she protested. "Mum wouldn't want all of this fighting."

Howard giggled, surprising himself apparently more so than Cathy. "Oh, right! And I suppose you know exactly what she'd want, do you? Mum's been sending you postcards from her _coffin_, has she?"

"You know she wouldn't want this."

"You know what I do know? I know she didn't want little scouse hooker's runt running around our house!" He spat, and then grasped her hair, silken and dense as a horsetail, and tugged on it as hard as he could. She yelped.

"Howard!"

"You don't see it now, but you will soon," he told her. "The sooner you start listening to me the better. You'll be as mad as Dad is."

Cathy rubbed the back of her head as it warmed with pain. Howard's brown mousy eyes now regarded her with such little affection she was sure it was dislike. And now could she bear it? She could never quite be sure with Heathcliff for his eyes were so dark they held only a resonance of emotion – sometimes she wondered, especially when they were talking at night, if she was simply staring into the back of his skull.

"I'm sorry!" she squealed. "Howie, please! I'll stay with you today. Please."

He turned to her, smiled, then held out his big hand and she took it joyously. They sat in the car and waited for Dad and Heathcliff to arrive, still holding hands. Howard needed her, she knew. She didn't fully understand why. Mum's absence had not yet been fully absorbed by her – it felt as though she might've been just shopping in the village or baking a cake in the kitchen, only slightly out of sight. She wondered why it didn't hurt momentarily, but then the thought glided out of her head as she heard footsteps.

Heathcliff walked out of the house with his hair brushed back, slick as an otter, in Howard's suit he borrowed for his Christening, still without the blazer. He looked strange, bathed, brushed; he even smelt hygienic for a change, Cathy noticed, like soap and water and baby-wipes. He got into the front seat beside Dad, and then they drove behind the funeral car, in utter silence, towards the village. The sun blared through the windows and rolled between light and shadow sumptuously over the green of the moor. Nobody made a sound in the car. Howard's fingers gently squeezed and released reflexively around her hand, and a few times his sniffing interrupted the silence. Heathcliff did nothing but stare at her in the rear-view mirror. She knew, but she did not respond.

The wreaths of orange flowers on top of the coffin in the funeral car read _Mum_. That was about all Cathy clearly remembered from the drive to the church, and the funeral itself, almost in its entirety. They sat on the pews and held little pamphlets, listing the lyrics of hymns and the pre-written, pre-determined, generic, unfeeling, Clinton Card paragraphs the vicar had written and would say in perfect order. They stood to sing something a few times, but neither Cathy nor Howard sang. Dad's voice boomed out over everyone's, his means of his survival in all stressful situations; creating noise. Heathcliff lip-synched his way through everything, and did hardly anything but stand and sit to order and gaze longingly at the curve of her cheek, frowning. She could smell the gel and hair wax on him, even when stood a few feet away. The frown didn't leave his face throughout the whole service.

The wood of the coffin, that expensive, red-tinged kind, shone in the light, bright as the skin of a fresh apple. Cathy watched it as it was lowered into a cleanly cut oblong in the Earth. They were each given a flower to throw inside, and they did so methodically, one by one – Dad, Howard, herself, Heathcliff, aunts and uncles, cousins standing in a ritualistic circle about them. It didn't feel right. She knew it was all preset, like the weather, like time, something bound to happen, something inevitable, like the mixture of wind speed and temperatures or the transition from moment to moment to past to present. How, she wondered, had Heathcliff caused that? He had not _made_ this. Heathcliff, as magical as he was (his hair dancing with coloured lights in the sun like the feathers of a crow, with his nocturnal, subaqueous eyes) could not change such things. And Howard blamed him. He was still clinging to her hand, and Heathcliff stood at Dad's side, gazing into the grave quite dazedly, exhaustedly.

What would happen when this was over, when Mum slept in the ground? Soon enough they'd spade the soil back over the neatly cut oblong and Mum would be gone forever, and while that within itself instilled fear in her, the thought of going home was the most frightening thing she could possibly imagine. Dad would be powerless to do anything in his utter regret and desperation and guilt and so Howard could do anything he pleased, anything he wanted, without being stopped. She remembered the bruises on Heathcliff, cloudy and black, and she remembered that slug of phlegm sliding down his cheek. She was scared. Howard had a look in his eye as the flower hit the lid of the coffin, as if he was staring into a bright light. His eyes squinted, the pupils dilated. For a moment he looked pleased. For a moment he looked dangerous.

And abruptly she ran. Her hand slid out of his with a nervous, sweaty squelching sound. Howard looked up at her. Heathcliff suddenly seemed to bite awake. Dad did nothing. Nobody moved but Heathcliff. "I'll go and find her," he told them, without asking permission – he was quite sure he was unwanted here, by Mrs Earnshaw and everyone else, they wouldn't mind. Cathy's Dad nodded twice and then Heathcliff set off after her. Her corrugated brown hair billowed in the wind and her hands were held straight out at her sides, the fingers split open to sense the moor wind's damp tongue caress them. She was going back into the church. Her figure disappeared behind the wall.

He ran fast. The doors were heavy to open. He braced himself and heaved, and found that the church was empty. Particles of dust were swirling within a sunbeam, tinged pink by the stained glass. The granite floor slabs had the coloured rays rippling all over them, quavering with heat, coloured blue and gold. He walked down the aisle silently, admiring the colours. It was always so very hushed in here, and he especially liked it when he was alone. It was calm, the air luscious with the smell of old tapestries, wine, dust, peace. Above him an angel stood in the glass, her wings outspread. He was struck with the image of a dead pigeon on a busy road, but then looked into those kindly, syrup-coloured eyes, filled warm and miraculous with sunlight, and all of a sudden the sickly feeling went away. He continued walking forward, running his fingers across the hard lengths of the wooden pews. His shoes clicked.

"Go away, Dad!" came Cathy's blubbering. "Go away!"

He saw her curled up next to the confession booth, sat on the floor, knees tucked up to rest her chin upon. "It's not your Dad," he replied.

When she looked up the sun made her whole face sparkle with tears and speckles of blood had risen in her cheeks, and she looked as though every contour of her face was beautiful, breakable stained glass. A pang of horror hit him, to see her this way, but still he had to ask, "Why have you ignored me?"

Cathy's bottom lip stuck out priggishly and she squeezed her eyes shut, a tear pulsating down her cheek. "I – Howie said. He said all of these things and I wanted to be there for him."

"So you thought you'd just ignore me?" he demanded.

"Well – I have to _choose_!"

"Fine. If you've made your choice I'd better get going."

He went to leave angrily, cracking his foot against the floor. She jumped. He liked it. She held her hand out pleadingly.

"No! Please, Heathcliff, come here. Please, I just – I'm frightened. I don't want you to go," she begged, the tears causing her whole body to judder violently. Of course he was compelled to obey her. Of course he could not resist when she so frantically needed him. He watched with intense pleasure as her hands clawed the air and her mouth puckered and clicked and snapped but said nothing, her stormy hair stuck to her wet cheek. She was so incredibly pretty when she cried, when she _needed_ him – what could possibly feel better? His chest tightened and he walked quickly to her, allowing her small hands to tie around his neck. She sighed into his shoulder, her whole body swaying with it, and he closed his eyes and knelt beside her.

Cathy tugged him to sit and curled into him reflexively, yearningly. Her head was on his shoulder, her tepid breath whispering beneath the collar of his shirt. "I'm scared," she said.

He rubbed her forearm. "What are you scared of?"

"I think that soon you'll have to leave."

The mere idea of it nearly made him laugh. Why would he ever _leave_? Nothing would make him leave. He didn't want to leave; if not because he had food and a warm bed then for Cathy. She was his best friend – and he had never known what it was to have a friend. He liked her, very much. Madly so.

"We're friends. I won't leave."

"I think Howie will make you leave."

"I _won't_ leave," he insisted. "Don't you believe me? I can't leave you."

She shook her head quickly, a few of the dark hairs growing static and sticking to his shirt. "But he can make you."

"No, he can't," he told her earnestly. She shook her head, and when her voice came out it was sudden and juttering, as though through a crackling radio speaker on a long lost frequency.

"He can force you away!"

"I'd kill him if he tried."

Cathy, stunned, turned to face him. He wore his usual indifferent expression as he stared at the other wall, and when he looked down at her, he smirked slightly and shrugged, his shoulder bumping her chin.

"I told you," he said, "I can't leave you. I won't do it."

"But I only want you here now, so everyone else –"

"I don't care," he snapped, angered now. He hated to think of it, but as always she was so stubborn she refused to be happy. "How many _times_, Cathy? Jesus! I'm not going anywhere. If you want me here then I'll be here."

"But everyone –"

"We're friends. I'm not going." He snatched out and grabbed her little chin between his two fingers.

She saw the honesty in his face and smiled gleefully, nudging her forehead against his chin. "You're better than everyone at school," she marvelled at him, her eyes feasting on the twisting, confounding darkness of his eyes, his thick, cruel mouth, girly eyelashes, "you're better than anything ever."

He chuckled, showing his kitten's teeth. "Can we sit down properly? My bum hurts."

"Let's go in the box," Cathy suggested, pointing to the confession booth.

"Is that what it's called, the box?"

"I don't know, it's just a tiny room to sit in I think. It's nice; it's like sitting in the middle of the circle of rocks on the moor."

"Alright, then."

Pulling open the door, she beckoned him inside with her index finger and slid down on the wooden bench. "It's not much more comfy, but it is better," she said. He sat next to her, and as always she tucked her head into him. It was dark and secret in here, and there were little holes on one side of the wall to see into another little box. It smelt like overripe plums and dust and nostalgic things, like tears and snot, but Cathy thought it smelt and tasted completely of worship.

"Do you think people come in here to hide?" he asked her. "This is like, where you can hide from God?"

"It's probably something like that – no-one can see you or hear you here. This is where you keep things you don't want other people to see. What they shouldn't know."

"Or what the Bible says they shouldn't know or do?"

"Some things, I've never heard of in the Bible," Cathy answered, "it doesn't say anything about not talking to tramps in the Bible, but people still say we're Unholy for it."

"Do you think it's Unholy?" he pushed.

"If it were God'd have struck you down, I suppose!"

There was a small stretch of silence, and Cathy breathed and breathed out lungful after lungful of summer air over his skin. The moist sensation swept his body, stroked his chest, the base of his throat. Her mouth was against the little exposed skin he had, and he noticed hungrily that it was slightly damp, that she had bitten it sharp, made it swollen with blood, hot with blood, slick and wet and soft.

Then Heathcliff made a noise, a grunt, sort of, and Cathy frowned at him in the half-dark.

"What's the matter?"

He said, "Nothing."

But then he tried to push her off him, away from him, and she wanted only to hold him at this moment in time, sure God kept them safe from harm and hate in his little dark box.

"What are you doing?"

"Get off me, for a minute!"

She complied, her hands sliding off his shoulders and slithering down across his chest, brushing against some sort of lump by his belly.

"What –"

"Don't!" he exclaimed, "you mustn't do that!"

She was completely dumbfounded. What was it, was it the lump? Did he have some sort of illness? She frowned at it, mesmerised. It was stuck in his trousers.

"You've got a lump," she explained.

"Don't – seriously. _Cathy_."

Enticed by the strangeness of it, rebelliously, she ran her finger over it. It felt hot under there. She wriggled her hips slightly, excited by its weirdness and Heathcliff's fear. Her knees parted as she shifted to look into his face.

"What _is_ that?" she gasped.

Heathcliff's chest was heaving with sudden panting. "I don't know. I keep doing it."

A sudden realisation made her mouth pop open. "Is it your naughty area?" she cried.

He nodded.

"I don't think it's supposed to come up like that, Heathcliff," she said carefully.

"No, it does. It just does it!" he persisted. "Honestly, I don't know what it is, it makes me feel funny."

"Well – what's it for?"

He looked at her wildly, blinking hard, licking his lips once – twice.

"I don't know," he answered.

"Hmm," Cathy frowned, inspecting it meticulously. Her mouth remained open, saliva collecting in the void between her bottom row of teeth and tongue. "How weird!"

"It is weird."

She sighed. "Well I don't mind, if it doesn't do anything. Maybe it's like sneezing; it just comes and goes for no reason?"

"I do think it's like that," he agreed.

She nodded happily. "Well I want another hug, so, move your arm."

He moved his arm and she settled into the crook of it, her ear resting against the quick, insistent thud of his heart. He breathed crazily until it went away, his fingers curling and grasping and digging at her waistband, pulling slightly at her hair, squeezing her thighs.

She sat quietly while it happened, the recollections of hymns and the prayers ringing out through her.

* * *

**A/N: WELL DONE if you have made it through this monster of a chapter! Wowza, it's biggie, and it was certainly interesting to write. I hope everyone enjoyed it!**

**Massive hugs and thank-yous to Autumnx, cherry-magpie-x and The Mighty Gazelle for their fantastic nuggets of love and support and enjoyment! You are all truly wonderful. Also, extra thanks to The Mighty Gazelle for doing a little proof read of this difficult chapter for me, for always encouraging and motivating me, and for having the best hair ever! WRAH, squillions of love! Another little update for the (very few) fans of this fic, he's also been working on a few illustrations for each chapter, and they're all lovely and amazing, so look out for them. I'll probably set up a deviantArt account to upload them all on for your viewing pleasure, and post a link on my profile. So please check it out and give him thanks and love!**

**Please let me know what you think guys, again, I hope everyone liked!**


	6. Chapter 6

They walked back to the house alone, Cathy's left hand tucked into the warm pocket between Heathcliff's chest and elbow, the right biting into his free hand. It was getting dark, dusky, and the wind was picking up now; rustling the leaves on the trees, taunting the still grass. Above her head a moth – or perhaps a particularly dull-coloured butterfly – was being repeatedly knocked off course by the force of it, its wings spinning, the wind howling as it stirred up trouble for the innocent thing.

"You know if you touch a butterfly it leaves magic on your fingers?" she asked Heathcliff dreamily. He was staring ahead at the curve of the cobbled road, curling up from the village into the recess of the moor. He was glowering, his jaw sliding slightly as he grated his molars.

"I always thought it was dust from the wings when you rub them," he replied dispassionately.

Cathy rolled her eyes, "You'd think a mermaid was just a funny fish, wouldn't you?"

"Mermaids aren't real, so I'd be right."

"Mermaids _could_ be real," she insisted, grinning up at him, "nothing is impossible."

"Everything is either real or not real though, isn't it?"

Cathy sighed as she watched his unchangingly disturbed face. It was so very alive and assured of himself here, as though he was sensing the night in his taste buds, savouring it growing richer in flavour, and feeling the altering Earth under his big paws as it shifted and made noise.

"Are _you_ real?" she asked quietly, enthralled by his face, the movement of his body.

For the first time since they had begun walking Heathcliff's face was contorted by a huge black shadow, which she realised unnervingly was a smile.

"What do you think, Cathy?"

_Cath-eey _– oh how she was growing to like that funny voice of his. Her eyes widened as she took in that dark face and eyes, the thick, carefully bowed and rounded mouth, the velvety-looking black curls, just swept back enough by the wind to reveal a soft patch of skin by his ear.

"I think you're a dream."

"I'm not a dream." He shook his head and then smiled lopsidedly, baring his teeth at her, playfully demonic. He pinched her, _hard_. She winced, giggled.

"Then you're a miracle!" she beamed.

He shook his head, the smile instantly twisting and dying. "I don't think so."

"You must be!" she sang at him, "You were set to me. From God. Like an angel, God sent you to me."

She had been ever so proud of him as he accepted the oil on his forehead, ate the tasteless wafer they offered him. He hadn't the heart to tell her that he did not believe, and that all of the time, of course, he had been pretending.

"I don't know whether God can do that," he said instead.

"He can do anything and everything," Cathy answered highly, "I'll lend you my Bible and you can read about it all properly."

"I can't."

"Come on, Heathcliff, I know it can be boring, but –"

"No," he interjected, and the gentleness of his voice seemed to shock her. "I can't _read_."

She was momentarily thrown off-guard, her lips pressing together awkwardly, thoughtfully. She smiled within another few seconds and squeezed his shirt between her fingers. He swallowed, elated. It was extremely easy for him to feel embarrassed and ashamed in front of her, but she didn't seem to care. He truly couldn't thank her enough for that – the idea of her genuinely being disgusted by him was absolutely sickening. He had been afraid, of course, before. But when she showed him how to run a bath that morning, a few days ago, she had nothing in her eyes but pretty, dancing blues, depth and tenderness, no revulsion. He had never known what it truly looked like before, a purely positive regard towards him.

She had dipped her soft little hand into the clear film of the water a rubbed the luxurious warmth of it over the back of his neck, slowly, slowly, slower until her fingers grew dry. He had thought, at the time, that it was baptism.

"Then I'll teach you!" she told him excitedly. "Howie can't tell us off for reading the Bible, after all."

Heathcliff disagreed – even if he made no action and caused no reaction, if he sat mute, if he did _nothing_, Howard would nonetheless have found something to be hateful about.

"I doubt it."

_Ah dowt et _– she simpered and wriggled, enchanted by his weird speech, losing sense of the words. Had she the common sense to slow down and listen she would have realised a long time ago that Heathcliff was very scared. He watched her and could almost see her mind just reeling away through her bizarre blue eyes.

"I don't care what people say," she told him. "He can tell us off all he likes! Dad'll get him for that, he loves me to read my Bible."

She didn't understand, he realised. He trudged his way further up, pulling Cathy with him, still tucked into his arm. He hoped they were all asleep now – surely they would have missed the buffet and the talking part of today. The Wake, Cathy's Dad had called it. Nobody would have spoken to him anyway, even when it was polite to, and so he would have been left stood in a corner watching powdery-faced old women pinch Cathy's cheeks. Heathcliff was glad. It was better this way.

Now the bullet-coloured farmhouse could be seen not too far away, sat on the edge of the world, away from life, a misanthrope's dream. Heathcliff gazed at it, pining.

"Home," Cathy sighed happily, elongating the vowels. She did a little hop as she walked. "I can't wait to get to sleep."

It was clear that she needed it, her eyes growing slightly heavy, leaning on him a little more. He squeezed her hand in his. "Not too long," he assured her. They pushed on until he was close enough to push open the door and tug her inside with him.

Heat and the smell of food wafted about the house – he recognised cooked chicken, vinegary salad dressing, something spicy, maybe onion bhajis. No doubt they'd have gone all out on the food, with the poshest caterer they could find – he half expected to see a silver platter of caviar and roast quails sat among the ham sandwiches and teacakes. The door to the dining room was slightly ajar, but from the hallway he could see nothing but empty cake stands, and a few black bin liners stuffed with paper plates.

Cathy tip-toed to whisper into his ear, "Shall we call out, Heathcliff?"

Heathcliff watched and listened for movement, but nothing replied.

"No," he answered quietly, "they'll only shout."

"I don't like it when they shout at you," she agreed – she knew perfectly well that the blame for their absence would be a burden placed on _his_ shoulders. As much as Mr Earnshaw believed in fairness and morality he was in too weak an emotional state to see reason beyond the loudest noise. And Howard always made the most noise, whenever he had even a small opportunity to.

"Let's go upstairs, put our pyjamas on, and go to sleep," he whispered.

He began walking forward towards the staircase, holding her hand as tight as he possibly could, so tight her fingers began to fold in and crush each other. She wriggled her fingers, but he did not let go.

"You're hurting me!" she hissed.

"If Howard comes he'll take you away," Heathcliff warned, "I know he will, he's angry."

"Why would he do that?" she wondered aloud.

Heathcliff did not look at her when he spoke, "Because it upsets me to think about it."

They ascended the stairs, swiftly and silently, clinging to each other. Cathy walked, frowning at the back of his head. His voice had been trembling. She rubbed his shoulder and they flew up into the corridor.

"I live here!" she told him jollily, "I won't go away!"

Heathcliff clicked the door open, oh-so carefully, so quiet, gentle. She was gradually becoming more and more enthralled by his stealth – she imagined him like Mowgli with the wolves, or with the Indians, painted red and black and white and hunting boars with spears. They tumbled into the room and Heathcliff locked the door behind them, heaving out a relieved breath.

"Well you're locked in now," he told her. "So you can't anyway. No-one can get in or out now."

"I'm trapped?" she asked naughtily, grinning, knowing what to expect. The light through the windows was navy blue. Heathcliff whipped around, his hair smashing against his cheek, and smirked like some handsome prince from Hell. The darkness of the day's death delicately accentuated the white of his teeth and the smooth, gently stretched black curve of his lip. She felt excited by it, her stomach clenching reflexively.

"Well, not yet," he replied softly.

"What do you –?"

She was cut off by him running at her, face first, with such force and speed her feet literally flew up into the air and her shoe slid off, banging against the floor, hard. He shoved her into the luxurious soft give of the bed, and she fell into it gladly, giggling and choking herself. He pressed her hands down as he crawled to kneel beside her, dangling his face above hers, teasing her, perhaps, she couldn't tell, but she felt purely mad, so close to him now, so close she could see her own face, gasping and crazed and delighted, reflected in his dark eyes, so close his chest rubbed against her belly, so close she wanted to run her fingers over the straight, strong bone in his nose, his cheek, chin, brow. She had play fought with him so many times on the moors now, but it always ended with this, and Cathy struggled to understand what it meant, or how to quite explain it, but it felt sinful and elating all at once.

"Trapped!" he exclaimed, laughing manically. "Now I am a pirate, and you are my treasure, and you'll stay locked in a chest in my cabin!" He dramatically stuck out his chest and curled his index finger to a hook, running it down her throat. "Ye salty dog, I've fownd meself a let-ull wench ta keep, worth a hundird thousand pieces o'gold!"

She laughed joyously, wriggling for her freedom, squeezing her eyes shut and sticking her tongue between her teeth. "No, Captain Hook!"

"Ney, 'tis Lowng Haefcleff Silver!" he boomed.

She beamed at him, "Do you like pirates, Heathcliff?"

The metal hook against her face became his warm palm again, and the crooked, toothy smile slithered from his face, and he stared at her blankly.

"I like stories about pirates," he answered. "By the dock, there were always stories about smugglers in the olden days."

"What's a smuggler? What's a dock?"

"Where your Dad found me, it's a place for boats to get to shore. And a smugglers a pirate, taking treasure from people and hiding it on land," he explained, and then dropped down onto his elbow, watching her face from above, his smile steadily returning. "When we grow up we'll buy a boat and I'll smuggle you away with me."

At that moment she could not have dreamed a more wonderful fate – what could be better, than being away from it all? From Mum's grave, Dad's crying, Howard's boisterous hate.

"You're not as boring as you make out, Heathcliff," she smiled. He returned it, and then stood up.

"We should change, now."

Once again Cathy organised that he would use the bathroom to wash, while she would change, and then they would swap. The bathroom was just opposite Cathy's bedroom, with the door to Howard's room being directly next to it. To Heathcliff's amazement, the door was open.

Howard was sat, leaning against his bed, facing the left hand wall of the room. He had no lights on, but the milky moonlight was pouring in through the windows. Were his cheeks glittering? Were there tears? Heathcliff paused, silent, frowning. Howard had a bottle in his hand – and Heathcliff knew the dark, feminine curves of the glass suggested something alcoholic, whisky, maybe, perhaps vodka. He glugged, tipping the bottle high into the air, a little liquid sloshing over his chin. He swallowed. Tipped. Swallowed. Tipped. And again.

It wasn't a sight Heathcliff was unaccustomed to, but it felt deeply wrong. He must have stolen in from the dining room, from his Father. Initially, he admired him for stealing something without being caught – it had taken him at least a year to master pick-pocketing and food-snatching without being shouted at and forced to return his kitty. But then the thought dawned upon him that this had been stolen from Peter Earnshaw, who was a man Heathcliff felt a splinter of respect for, and that Howard was not a rough-faced middle-aged scouser, but a fourteen year-old boy. He thought perhaps he should say something, or try to stop him; but he had seen drunks – _been_ drunk. And God, your head hurt in the morning...

He wet his lips, smirked awkwardly, and slipped into the bathroom.

Cathy did nothing to change his actions too. He heard her call "Howard?" to him rather sheepishly, and then heard the door creak closed. He did not mention it, and neither did she. She simply waggled into the bed beside him, ensuring to ruffle the pillow and blanket sat atop the camp bed, to trick Dad and Howard into believing Heathcliff had slept there. She sat her chin on his shoulder and looked up at him pleadingly.

"Will we be safe?" she asked.

"Of course we will," he answered, and tentatively placed his hand on her shoulder. She breathed him in, the smell of soap and hair gel, and pushed her face closer into the gap between his shoulder and jaw.

"But Howard his drinking drink, and Dad's crying on the sofa, and you don't smell the same," she whispered. "Why're they so changed?"

Heathcliff curled his arm around her back and rubbed it slowly.

"They've lost something they love very much."

Cathy was silent for a moment, and he closed his eyes to absorb the wondrous sensation of her three fingers tracing strange, imaginary shapes on his forearm.

"I don't feel like that, though," she whispered. "I'm not very sad."

"It's good that you aren't sad," he reasoned.

"But I should be sad if I loved her."

Heathcliff said nothing, unsure of love and in afflictions and associates. He was not sure how to answer because he did not understand what was appropriate to feel, or what was incorrect to feel.

"I would cry if you were to die, Heathcliff," she continued dazedly, and it sounded as though she was talking to herself, or a ghost. "I'd miss fighting with you, and collecting ladybirds, and drawing birds and looking for birds' nests. I'd cry so much. I haven't cried enough."

"Then I'll at least make sure I don't die before you," he said softly. "Then you won't have to cry."

"Today Dad didn't even smile once and he's all grey and quiet and he cries. He's like a sad little ghost, he's like Casper."

He had no idea what a Casper was. "No-one wants you to feel dead."

"But I think I'd be that way if _you_ were to die."

He glanced down at her, and Cathy felt some sort of smug smile on his face. She didn't understand, but now her mind was too tired to try. She could feel his pulse on the end of her nose and somehow, despite everything, slept easily that night. Heathcliff's rhythmic breathing stirred her hair and pushed against her face, and it swept away all the bad thoughts she could conjure.

* * *

**A/N: So concludes Chapter Six!**

**Firstly, I've got to say to everyone reading this, I'm so sorry. Unfortunately motivation has been something extremely difficult for me to summon lately, and I was beginning to give up on this fic completely – until yesterday when I saw more people were reading and enjoying this fic more than I thought! I want to give a huge thank-you to Namuyesol and VIOLET for their lovely reviews – it honestly inspired me to continue with this and so I've worked extra hard to get this chapter out as quickly as possible for both of you! Thank you again! And of course thank-you to my ever-faithful reviewer The Mighty Gazelle for his constant support and love.**

**I hope everyone enjoys this, please let me know what you think!**


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